


longer nights (with lesser feelings)

by starlight_sugar



Category: Neoscum (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 02:35:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16966080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlight_sugar/pseuds/starlight_sugar
Summary: “Can I tell you a secret?”“Pox,” he says patiently.“A new secret,” she says in exasperation. “Not this one.”





	longer nights (with lesser feelings)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of the AUcember series, a self-made challenge where I try to write a new AU one-shot every day. This was originally posted on Tumblr on December 5th and is being cross-posted upon request. You can read all of the AUcember fics in the collection linked above.
> 
> The title of this fic comes from [Golden](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiYzjBH813w) by Hippo Campus.

Tech swings his legs up onto Pox’s couch and taps his earpiece. “Testing, testing, one-two, one-two. Am I coming through?”

“You don’t have to do that every time,” Pox says. The comm is tinny and distorted, but she still sounds fond. She loves it. Tech is completely willing to assume that she loves it. “What are you going to do if I ever don’t answer?”

“Switch to another earpiece.”

“Another?”

“Yeah, I have backups.”

“Backups!” Pox repeats delightedly. “Where on earth do you get extra earpieces?”

“Radio Shack?” Tech shakes his head. Pox is good at a lot of things, including being a superhero, but she is way, way too easily impressed by simple technology sometimes. “I keep telling you, you need to get-”

“Need to get someone who actually knows computers, yeah.” He can practically hear her rolling her eyes. There’s a noise on the other end of the comm that Tech can identify as her jumping off one roof and landing on the other. It’d taken him ages to figure out what it is, because Pox is so light on her feet. She’s not even breathing heavily, which is completely unfair. “I’ve been thinking about that.”

“Oh, you’ve been thinking about it?”

“I have been!”

“Are you thinking that you won’t do anything about it?”

Pox blows a raspberry. “Actually, I have someone in mind.”

Tech… stops. That’s new. “You do?”

“You remember my friend Zenith?”

“Of course I do.” Tech isn’t really sure how Pox and Z met, but whenever the two of them are in a room together, he couldn’t pry them apart. He gets along with the guy well enough, thank god, but it’s nothing compared to what Pox is like around him. He gets the impression that Zenith isn’t much of a close-friends person other than Pox, so maybe the two of them just clicked. “Isn’t he really good with computers?”

“He’s great with computers!” Pox giggles abruptly. “He’s a- a-”

“Don’t,” Tech groans.

“A real tech wizard!” she finishes triumphantly.

“Pox,” Tech says, but he’s laughing despite himself. “You can’t just say these things.”

“I can say all these things!”

“So you’re thinking about telling him?”

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“Pox,” he says patiently.

“A new secret,” she says in exasperation. “Not this one.”

Tech is one of… well, he might actually be the only person to know that Pox lives a double life as a superhero. She’d told him while they were drunk, and then to prove it she’d done a backflip off her couch. Tech hadn’t really believed her at the time, because his drunk brain couldn’t connect backflips to superheroes, but he applauded politely.

And then the next night Pox had popped up in his apartment with swollen knuckles, a mask, and a cheerful smile. Tech had believed her after that.

“Yes, Pox, you can tell me a secret.”

“I think he already figured it out.” Pox laughs breathlessly. “Isn’t that just- just incredible? He knows it’s me!”

Pox isn’t very good at keeping her secret identity a secret. She tends to talk to Tech about beating people up, with a lot of very genuine glee. Tech thinks it’s charming, and also definitely dangerous, but he’s pretty sure that Pox won’t actually be reckless with the secret. Zenith is a good dude, as far as Tech can tell, and more importantly he cares about Pox.

“That is incredible,” he says, even though his stomach is sinking a little bit. He’s complained to Pox that she needs an actual computer guy or real backup, but it’s strange to think of her actually finding someone more qualified than him. It’s strange to consider not being the voice in her ear. “Maybe he can set you up with real equipment.”

“Aw, Tech,” Pox coos. “I don’t need real equipment! I did just fine before you came along.”

That much is true. The comms, walkie-talkies that Tech had painstakingly modified into mobile earpieces, were his idea for keeping an eye on her. He’s tried some other things too, tweaking exercise watches into vital sign trackers and rigging up mobile cameras, but he hasn’t made anything else that Pox takes out into the field.

Pox is lowkey, as far as vigilantes go. She has a mask to cover her face, and she puts her hair up, and that’s about all she does. She mostly goes into dark alleys and stops muggings, and occasionally walks lost children home. Tech always shuts off the comms for things like that, because Pox always sounds so… sad, when she talks to kids. He doesn’t know what happened that could make her that sad, but he figures that it’s hers and hers alone.

“Real equipment would be better,” Tech starts, even though this argument never goes anywhere, but before he can keep going he hears a heavy thud on the other side of the line. Someone else landed on the roof next to her. “Uh. Shadow, do you have company?”

“It’s Goldilocks!” Pox cries delightedly, and Tech relaxes minutely.

There are a lot of heroes in Indianapolis. Tech knows most of them by reputation, but he knows some of them because of Pox. She’s the Shadow, and she’s a street fighter, but sometimes bigger names stop by and say hello. One of them is a guy named Aura, who seems to have most of the same powers as Pox - light on his feet, quick with his fists, handles a sword well - and also looks like he’s made of solid gold. He’s real flashy. Tech has seen him on local news, and the guy is not pretty enough to be as obnoxious as he is.

“Hey, Shadow,” Aura says warmly. Which, okay, Tech can’t fault him there. For all his issues, he’s nice to Pox. “You got your tech support tonight?”

“I do!” There’s a rustle that Tech already knows is Pox taking out her comm to hold out. “Say hi, Starman!”

Tech rolls his eyes at the nickname, like he always does, but he flips on the voice modulator that he uses whenever Pox puts him on speaker. “Hey, Aura.”

“Hey there, Starman,” Aura says. “You better keep an eye out, alright? I’m calling it quits early tonight, so you’ve gotta have Shadow’s back.”

“I have Shadow’s back,” Tech says, a little more annoyed than he means to be. It’s coming from a good place, he’s sure of it. He’s been leaving Pox on her own more and more lately, and while she can handle herself just fine, he still feels better when he’s on the line. It’s totally normal for Aura to be looking out for Pox.

“I have my own back,” Pox says indignantly. “You two are just as bad as each other! I’ve got Starman in one ear and Aura in the other, and then Z will be in the third ear-”

“It’s not polite to talk about your third ear in public,” Tech says without thinking. Pox starts cackling, loud and immediate, and Tech is so pleased by the sound of it that it takes him a second to realize that Aura is laughing too, a low baritone rumble in the background.

Tech can feel himself blushing for no particular reason. “Uh,” he says, and hopes that Pox gets the hint.

Pox doesn’t get the hint. She keeps laughing. Tech can’t even be mad about that.

“You’re one of a kind, Starman,” Aura says, and he… sounds fond, too, kind of the same way Pox does.

Tech frowns. Out of all the other vigilantes Pox talks to, she definitely seems to run into Aura the most. He gets the feeling that they have a lot of common ground, either in powers or sense of humor. So he’s talked to Aura before, but this is the first time Aura has ever shown any kind of real interest in Tech.

“Thank you?” Tech says eventually, voice embarrassingly high.

Pox, thankfully, jumps in now. “Well, Starman and I had better get going. Places to be, people to slice-”

“I’m not doing either of those things.”

“But you’re honorarily doing it!”

“I’ll leave you to it,” Aura says warmly. “Be careful out there, Shadow.”

There’s a pause, which Tech knows beyond the shadow of a doubt is Pox sticking out her tongue. “Never,” she promises, and then Tech can just barely hear her footfalls as she runs away.

Tech waits a minute for good measure, and then clears his throat. “Do you and Aura hang out when I’m not around?”

“You’re never around, Tech,” Pox says, not unkindly. “Not just because you’re busy, because you’re not physically here. And speaking of being busy, isn’t tonight Tuesday?”

“Pox, why would I know what day it is?”

“The second Tuesday of the month?”

Tech freezes. “Shit, is it? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why did you forget your standing appointment with your roommate?”

“Because I’m a bad roommate!” Tech leaps to his feet. “Shit! Pox!”

“Go home,” Pox cries, voice crackling with disbelief. “Tech!”

“I have a lot going on,” Tech protests, which is true, even though Pox doesn’t even know all of it. “What- why would I be out, what’s a good excuse?”

“I don’t know, go buy snacks or something?”

“Snacks!” Tech rushes to the door of Pox’s apartment - which takes no time, considering it’s the world’s smallest studio - and slips his shoes on. “Thank you!”

“Have a good time!”

“Make good choices, text me when you get home.”

“I won’t.”

“I know you won’t,” Tech sighs, and disconnects the comm to the sound of Pox cackling. She’s notoriously bad about texting him when she gets home, as though she’s not an actual superhero. Carefully, he tosses the comm on Pox’s couch, leaves, locks the door behind him, and breaks out into a dead sprint down the hall.

#

Tech, thankfully, blessedly, beats Lance home, which gives him enough time to set up snacks and also catch his breath from all of the horrible, horrible running that he’s been doing. By the time Lance gets there, Tech has chips and dip sitting on the coffee table - okay, on the empty crates that someone left in front of their apartment building that they’ve been using as a coffee table since Dak broke their last one.

Lance seems a little out of breath too, which is unusual for him. Tech raises his eyebrows. “You take the stairs or something?”

“Or something.” Lance flashes a smile at him and swipes a hand through his hair. “You got movie night snacks?”

“I got movie night snacks.”

“What a coincidence.” Lance lifts up a grocery bag. “I got movie night snacks. You in the mood for savory or sweet?”

“We can have a long movie night. Double feature.”

Lance grins. “I like the way you think.”

Tech smiles back, ignoring the annoying little fluttery thing his heart does when Lance smiles at him. The two of them have been seeing less and less of each other lately. Lance has been working a lot of double-shifts at the bar he tends, so it’s not unusual for him to be gone all night. And between Tech’s personal junk and his nights with Pox, their nights up don’t always line up. But it’s good to know that monthly movie night is still a sacred institution.

Now, if he could just get over the dumb part where he’s a little bit in love with his roommate, that would be perfect.

“Been practicing?” Lance asks conversationally as he comes to plop down on the couch next to Tech, dropping his grocery bag next to the coffee table crates.

Tech nods. “Been working on some little fireballs.”

“Little as in contained, or-”

“Little as in contained.” Tech flourishes his wrist and calls up fire, as cautiously as he can.

He’s been practicing his magic more and more, especially with Lance gone most nights. He has a couple of places - in the apartment if it’s not dangerous, in a gas station parking lot if it is, in a different parking lot if it’s flammable - and all of them are extremely, extremely covert. Lance found out about Tech’s magic completely by accident, and he’s one of the only people who knows that Tech has powers. Not even Dak knows. Hell, not even Pox knows, and Tech’s not sure how to tell her without feeling guilty that it took so long to do it.

But it’s easy to do magic around Lance, who always looks at it with awe. Who encouraged him to start practicing in the first place. It’s almost as easy as doing magic by himself, with nobody there to judge him. He’s sure that Lance isn’t judging him.

The fireball appears in his palm, about the size of a golf ball, casting a soft orange light around him. Tech reaches out with the pointer finger of his opposite hand and moves it upward, and the flame follows, stretching into a column, swirling and dancing as Tech moves his hand. “It’s a little easier to do on this scale,” he murmurs, zipping the fire back and forth in the air. “I’m working on some bigger stuff, you know, nothing too big, but it’d be pretty cool to be able to lob fireballs at people one day, right?”

He flicks his eyes over to Lance, who’s staring in awe - not at the fire, like he’d expected, but directly at Tech. Tech gulps immediately. Fuck, Lance’s eyes look good in firelight. Lance’s eyes look good in any light.

“You’re doing great,” Lance says, so sincerely that it does things to Tech’s stomach. Goddammit. “Keep practicing, okay? I’ll try and squeeze out a couple more nights off so I can come with you if you want.”

Tech closes his palm, and the fireball dissipates immediately. “I’d like that,” he says, ignoring the hiss of smoke in the air between them. “If- if you can-”

Lance waves him off. “I’ve got this new coworker, she’s pretty good at what she does. Van thinks so too. She can cover for me a couple nights, I’m sure of it.”

“If you’re sure.”

“This is worth wrangling time off for anyways,” Lance says, like that’s final. “You ready for the movies?”

Tech takes a deep, steadying breath and turns to Netflix. He feels a little calmer as soon as he’s looking away from Lance, but he can still feel Lance’s eye’s on him, Lance’s weight on the couch next to him. Wonderful, wonderful Lance, who has no idea that Tech moonlights as superhero tech support, but who knows Tech’s only other real secret.

“Ready for the movies,” he says, as casual as he can manage. Like this is just another normal movie night in their normal lives. “Any idea what you want to watch?”

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr and Twitter @waveridden!


End file.
